Wouldn’t most of us agree that living in 2010 certainly has advantages over 1975, technologically? I think, for me, the cell phone was the invention that impacted me the most.
My kids may have thought it highly inconvenient that they had to call or text me 20 times a day. “Text me when you get there”, “Text me when you’re leaving”, “Text me after you explain to your teacher what happened that homework wasn’t done”, “Text me if that guy bothers you”, “Text me when you’re ready to be picked up”…… I hope they realize that without cell phones, they wouldn’t have been going anywhere to call me when they got there. Or, worse yet, I would have followed them to insure their safety. Cell phones brought me a teeny peace of mind within the chaos of having two teenagers.
And now my phone gives me a map. Gone are the days when my dad would pull off on the shoulder of the road to unfold this gigantic 50″ x 50” creased mess that, incidentally, was never replaced with newer versions. I am quite certain that the map of I-75, with all of its little side detours (my dad should have been crowned KING of detours) was the same map used from my infancy through adulthood. I don’t think it ever dawned on him that things could have changed….anyway, now you ask a smart phone what to do or where to go and presto~ your answers displayed brightly on a screen the size of breakfast bar. Pretty cool.
Books? They’re downloaded on my Nook. I don’t even need to bother with licking my finger to turn the page anymore. Look at the calories I am no longer burning with that task!
My new MacBook Pro? I was stuck on a gargantuan font size on one particular page, having had no idea how I got there or how to remedy the situation until a MacBook Pro genius informed me that I had somehow accidentally used two fingers to expand the page and I simply needed to “pinch” it to return the page to its normal size. Jeez. Sometimes I think I’d be better off in 1975 (minus the pigtails and bellbottoms).
And then yesterday, I discovered a slightly imperfect technological advance. That of the automatic flushing toilet. The premise is that this amazing toilet can “sense” when it is no longer in use and flush, miraculously, on its own! Cool, huh? Well, there are times when that technology doesn’t seem to operate flawlessly. Yesterday, I found myself standing there and waiting while this commode ignored my subliminal stare of impatience. I did what I never thought I would do in my lifetime. I “hid” from the toilet ~ stepping far against the stall wall to fool this thing….and it flushed. Aha~ you thought I had left, didn’t you? Yes, a small victory for psyching out the restaurant toilet. Props to me.
I triumphantly exited the stall, secure in my ability to outwit the toilet, only to find that the water faucet (also automatic, thank you) was not able to sense my hands. Eventually, I was waving my hands in the sink like a lunatic and somehow the water dribbled out. In a word, my trip to the ladies room was an overall failure.
I could go on and on….and maybe I will. Tomorrow.